E is for excellence. Homeschooled children have the time to pursue their specific interests to the point of excellence. As writer Malcolm Gladwell famously noted in his book Outliers, it takes 10,000 hours of practice to achieve excellence in a given pursuit. Children who spend their days in school lose eight or more hours a day to school and homework. But the homeschooled child who loves to paint or play the violin or program computers can easily carve out five hours a day for every weekday of the year and achieve excellence in their chosen area in 8 years. Imagine how many more accomplished citizens our country could produce if every child with a strong interest was homeschooled in order to have time to pursue that interest. Let’s hear it for homeschooling!
Prepare your children for the future: read my book, Thriving in the 21st Century: Preparing Our Children for the New Economic Reality.